appeal to popularity

I hadn’t really realized how long I had been running this site until I looked up a few older posts a few weeks ago. This website has changed shape, servers, and domain names in those four years, but the central theme has stayed the same: religion is inherently violent and has no place in modern civilized society. As sort of a blast from the past, I present to you the first four blog posts I ever made on this site.

Subservience of Women
“What better move to make when writing the bible than to include a post to keep women in submission for all of time than to include the obligatory “men are better than women” verse.

Don’t Pray For Me, Argentina
“I’ve got to hand it to Christianity. They have a pretty good racket setup. What most likely started as a simple way to keep the uneducated working class in check has become a self-perpetuating machine with all the right gimmicks built right in. Such as ‘We are right. Everyone else is wrong.’ Gotta love that one. No tolerance for diversity, no compassion for your fellow man, no ‘love thy neighbor’ (wait a tick…)” (Read More)

What Foxholes?
“You’ve probably all heard it. “There are no atheists in foxholes.” Oh really? What foxholes? And why wouldn’t they be down there? Are foxholes lined with Holy Water or some atheist repellant? I understand what this message is trying to convey, but that doesn’t make it anymore based in fact. The fact that people keep repeating this drivel only continues to lend to its credibility.” (Read More)

The most recent incident of religious boneheadedness concerns the extension of discounts to insurance policyholders who were churchgoers. Offering a discount based on religion is in violation of the Fair Housing Act, a federal statute that “protects” buyers and renters by maintaining their right to discriminate.

I hope I don’t lose anyone here, but hear me out. While I am not at all a Libertarian, the following part may make some of my Libertarian friends moist in their nether regions.

While it is generally a good thing to keep religion out of things like buying a home, there are certain places where the marketplace could course-correct and eliminate the need for Federal intervention. If I were to own an insurance company, of course I would gladly take the money of anyone that walked through my door, regardless of their religious beliefs. As an atheist, it would absolutely make my day to meet a fellow non-believer, and if I wanted to tip them a discount, I should be able to. After all, I would be doing no harm except to my bottom line. Hell, if I was in a progressive enough area, I might be so bold as to offer a discount on auto insurance to customers who show me their Darwin fish emblem. But none of these things are legal thanks to the Fair Housing Act.

What makes this a particularly sticky situation is that our current system is not sufficiently competitive to allow for consumers to have access to alternatives to such religious buffoonery, as was the case in Kentucky. There are many laws (particularly state and local laws) which prevent some properties from being insured by out-of-state insurance policies. This could be super sucky for someone living in Kentucky who may have no other choice but to purchase homeowner’s insurance from a fundy.

However, it would be nice if some brave soul opened the Atheist Insurance Agency and his or her loyal customers from all 50 states could enjoy discounts, great service, and truly be in “good hands”.

Black holes exist. And one of them has a television show on Fox News. All reason, common sense, and rationality are sucked in and crushed to nothingness in a blowhard singularity. While some black holes emit radiation, this particular one emits bullshit and bigotry.

The first part is a little slow, and while I agree that the media often portrays things contrary to how they exist in reality, to state that the people on the edges deserve no voice is tyrannical. Of course, if you watch Fox News or CNN on a regular basis, you probably aren’t concerned with too many viewpoints other than those within your comfort bubble anyway.

It’s only mentioned briefly in the video, but Glenn is so upset because of media attention that surrounded the use of the word “God” in the presidential oath of office. Old news, I know, but the principle is still important. He goes on to say that “89% of us believe in God” and “89% want the phrase ‘under God’ to stay in the Pledge [of Allegiance].” Unless two polls just happened to produce identical results, I think Glenn is making an incorrect inference. I know of several theists personally who dispute “under God”‘s presence in the Pledge of Allegiance, as it was added as an afterthought and does nothing to truly unify the people of this nation. Of course, what Glenn is really saying is that he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the 11% of Americans who don’t believe in his definition of god.

Just another example of the elitist, blowhard babble to come from a talking head that claims to respect the voice of the unheard, except he takes the easy route by redefining the group of people that he think ought to be heard more.

I received the following email a few days ago. I do not know the person who sent it to me, and I can only assume that we were in contact years ago in an email that I have long since purged from my Gmail account. I get forwarded messages every once in a while; Gmail is pretty good about halting most of them. This one was a little different though. It almost seems that Gmail let this one through, so that I could deliver a retributive bitch slap. It was titled “The Grinch”.

Today, November 12th, 2008, I read in the news that the “American Humanist Association” has launched a “Why Believe in a God?” campaign, starting on buses in Washington DC next week. According to their spokesman, athiests, agnostics and non-theists “feel a little alone during the holidays, because of its association with traditional religion”.

REALLY? People who deny there is a God -they get bummed when other people celebrate God? Why is that? They are totally welcome to believe in God! Nothing stops them but themselves! I believe in God. I’m not sad, nor do I feel left out, when athiests sit around not believing!

We have become a nation of whiners…and apparently, a nation of Godless whiners! Will you please join me in making a phone call to the American Humanist Association? Assure them “Don’t be so sad! We’ll share our God with you!” Cheer them up! It will just take a moment, it will tie up their phone lines, and THEY pay for the toll free call!

They can be reached at (800) 837-3792. Call now!!! Call often!!! And send this email to EVERYONE you know. Maybe we can be the Grinch who stops their $40,000 ad campaign – by sending them a big phone bill!

How Christ-like.

“We don’t agree with you, so instead of responding with a logically-sound argument, we’ll prank call you a bunch of times and run up your phone bill!” What’s next? Having a bunch of pizzas delivered to their headquarters?

This email had 476 recipients, including myself, and they were listed alphabetically and cut off early into the D’s. I don’t even want to guess how many people got this email from this lady. Oh yeah, did I mention that she’s a lady. And that I have her name, address, and phone number? Thanks to my good friend, the internet, I do!

Her name is ***** ********, and she lives near Chicago. I won’t give her full address, but since I was able to find her information easily online I’m sure any interested parties could do the same. I was originally going to post her phone number, but again, I think I am better than that. But… for anyone who wants to do some internet digging, I’ll give you a hint: her area code is 630.

I’d love to say, “Call ***** up and harass her!”, but I’m not going to. In fact, I hope no one calls her. She leads a sheltered existence inside a set of medieval beliefs surrounded by a toddler’s maturity for debate. There is not a single thing any one of of us could offer ***** to change this.

That is the sad reality of the world in which we live. We are outnumbered by people who resort to an appeal to popularity all to often to justify their childish, strong arm techniques.

Edit: I was contacted by the person who was named in this post. They said that the mass email was the result of an email account hijacking, and they asked me to remove identifying information. I did so out of respect for their wishes.